With just two weeks to go till BiCon and the hard work of the many marvellous facilitators who sent me sessions info, I am releasing the Pre-BiCon Session Schedule [42kB PDF]. This is now on the sessions page.
I say Pre-BiCon because there will be changes and indeed opportunities for additions to the schedule in the run up to, and during BiCon.
If I have scheduled you as a facilitator in two things at once, or you see something really silly please do email me on email address removed as we have a few days before this goes to print.
However, it is impossible to make schedule changes if there are clashes against other sessions you would like to attend (unless you told me in advance and I've screwed up) as I have had to work round many facilitators' and session-room availability as well as doing my best to make the schedule balancing overall (no one likes mornings shocker!).
Oohh! Lots of lovely sessions. 9.30am start is going to be painful!
Thank you! I was very very happy when facilitators told me they would be happy/okay with mornings cos so many understandably said "PLEEEEEASE no mornings" 🙂 I decided to not worry too much about schedule-gaps on Friday and Sunday mornings for this reason. I might encourage those mysterious morning folk to do a morning Nosher's Network or something.
Wow! There are 6 things I want to go to all at once!
Serious question: Is it intended that there's a 15 minute gap, or a half-hour gap between the end of one workshop and start of the next? Just wondering how long I have to get myself from one building to the other via the one mystical, magical, disabled-accessible loo 😀
Hi Helen-Louise,
I've evidently outdone myself in making the worst clash possible *bows* :). I am guessing that's a Fri or Sat slot as those were the most requested by facilitators.
There is a 15 minute gap or a meal-break between every session. This was felt to be the best compromise between fitting things in, giving people time to move about without too much dead time or space which is very anxious making for newbies because it can quickly become too long but not long enough for anything. We've also tried not to have more that two sessions without a longer break and 90 min mealbreaks so people can take rests or go off-site to eat as well.
Referring to the site map which is at http://alpha.bicon2011.org.uk/venue/site/ (and also in the access report).
We have sessions in
and
If you look at the schedule the colour of the background of session cells corresponds to the colour on the map so that gives you an idea of the distance between them. I think it's about 250m between Shirley and Stamford buildings off the top of my head (I can't find where we listed that info, which means I should make it more obvious at some point).
So slightly more than 'one' mythical adapted toilet but still I agree not enough as there are more than a couple of wheelchair users. Before the venue changeover we had 2 buildings and 3 adapted toilets and it was all a bit closer together. We will be stressing in the handbook and on notices ON the adapted toilets that these are absolutely for disability access only cos there are so few of them and asking people not to use the adapted loos if they don't need them! If you feel there are a lot of people who don't seem (I know that's hard to judge cos of invisible disabilities) to be legit users please do let the team know, we can remind people in plenaries and so on.
The other thought is that Shirley House is close to John Foster accommodation which all wheelchair users are based in. It may be quicker for wheelchair users to nip back to flats for the loo.
Do let me know if you have any more questions and I will do my best to answer them.
And I'm headdesking on a reread of my own comment as I've made the assumption all people using the adapted-toilets are wheelchair users.
Although perhaps if people can walk a little and don't need a larger cubicle space it would be good if those folk could use the non-adapted toilets where possible to keep the adapted ones free for those who don't have a choice… But that gets into sticky ground about eligibility for adapted-loos and judgement stuff. Basically I have to assume people will be as ethical as they can be while also not suffering needlessly if they do truly need the adapted loos.
Apologies and I beg forgiveness for crapnesses as I'm running on a sleep deficit today!